Category: ASIA

Peninsula (South Korean Zombie Film Review & Summary)

South Korean Film 2020

Peninsula (South Korean Zombie Film Review & Summary)


Peninsula Poster

  • Genre: Horror, Zombie Movie, Thriller
  • Release Date: 2020
  • Origin: South Korea; Sequel to Train To Busan
  • Film:  116 minutes

 

Cast

  • Gang Dong-won as Jung-seok (Marine Captain)
  • Lee Jung-hyun as Min-jung (Mother of the Two Girls)
  • Lee Re as Jooni (Eldest Girl – driving genius)
  • Ye Won-lee as Yu Jin (Second daughter genius with remote-controlled cars)
  • Kwon Hae-hyo as Elder Kim (Stand-in grandad for the girls)
  • Kim Min-jae as Sergeant Hwang
  • Koo Kyo-hwan as Captain Seo
  • Kim Do-yoon as Chul-min
  • Lee Ye-won as Yu-jin
  • Jang So-yeon as Jung-seok’s elder sister
  • Moon Woo-jin as Dong-hwan
  • Kim Kyu-baek as Private Kim
  • Bella Rahim as Major Jane (Works for the (UN)

Reviewed by Peter Morton

This is one excellent & exciting movie. We watched the enjoyable first movie ‘Train to Busan’.  It is said that sequels rarely if ever are as good as the first movie, this is one is as good if not better. Costing $8 million (£6million) it has so far made  $100 million (£77 million). This sequel movie is set four years on from the zombie apocalypse devasting the Korean peninsula. Whilst zombies play a lesser role, the action and suspense are palpable. The hero is a south Korean Marine army captain (Jung-Seok), adept at martial arts, who tries to lead his family out of the beleaguered country on a rescue ship that ends up in Hong Kong.

He & his brother in law become part of a small ex-pat group treated with suspicion as plague carriers in HK. Criminals probably Triad & US criminals enlist this group to return to Busan in order to retrieve an abandoned lorry which has $20 million (£15 million) stashed in it. Despite being told that they would share in the money when it is retrieved, the possibility of betrayal is all too real.

The comradely ex-pat group returns to Busan armed & using satellite phones. They find the city devasted and zombies still running amok. They finally locate the lorry and are about to drive it to the port to meet the ship that will pick them up.

This where the real action and adventure begins.  A rescue unit of the South Korean army remaining in Busan has gone rogue in the four years. The unit has set up a fortified camp for survivors which is run in the style of the Mad Max movies. The unit sees the lorry moving through the city streets and thinking it contains food, hijacks it, and returns it to the camp.  Some of the group escape but face the violent army unit. The army captain Jung-Seok is rescued by a  very resourceful family who had escaped the repressive army camp in this dystopia & has hidden away. Ironically, the mother (Min-Jung), of his rescuing family was originally refused rescue with her family by Jung-Seok four years before, when he was fleeing Korea with his own family.

Jung-Seok feels guilty at this and offers to take the family out of Korea in the lorry after they have to retrieve it from the army and its psychopathic leaders (Sergeant Hwang & Captain Seo). Their plan is to use the lorry &  get to the port then meet the pick-up ship. Their plans to infiltrate the hostile camp and journey is one of tense action as they do this. Jung-Seok seeks to redeem himself and tries to help the family to escape.

I can thoroughly recommend this movie. It is well-acted, exciting, frantic, thrilling, sad at times, and keeps our nerves on edge as you hope Jung-Seok &  the family can succeed. Like the first movie and other excellent  South Korean zombie etc, horror movies, the movie gets directly to the plot and action without the sometimes frustrating & seemingly slow build-up lead into the story as in many western movies & TV, which is refreshing.

I can envisage this may become a successful movie franchise.

 

 

Guzheng (Ancient Chinese Musical Instrument)

Musical Instrument

Guzheng (Ancient Chinese Musical Instrument)


Guzheng.   Attribution : © Glenn Francis, www.PacificProDigital.com

The Guzheng or zheng is some kind of zither.

The strings are plucked to play it, not strum like a guitar.

As such ancient guzheng players used to wear tortoiseshell or ivory as fingerpicks.

If you are an avid viewer of Chinese historical costume dramas, you would have seen a guzheng being played by either or both the male and the female leads or even anyone in the cast.

The sound of the guzheng is atmospherically and ethereally old china.

It is so powerful that it is used in some fantasy historical dramas as some sort of weapon of destruction.  Love it.

Though, a version of guzheng can also be found in other Asian countries such as gayageum in Korea, koto in Japan, yatga in Mongolia, etc.

16 December

 

The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer.
– Theodore Roosevelt

 

Christmas Month

16 December

Christmas Rooster, photo by JMorton


Happy Birthday to: –

 

 


Notable Events:

 

 

 

 


Maligayang Pasko

 

 

The Loving Couple – Feng Shui

The Loving Couple – Feng Shui

 

The Loving Couple, photo by JMorton

Origin: China; Fung Shui


Peter and I bought these Loving Couple in Divisoria in the Philippines because they looked so cute. We just couldn’t resist.

By the way, Feng Shui object d’art is big business in the Philippines.

Apparently, these figurines are of a newly married couple.

Aside from Mandarin ducks figurines, which I think is a slightly more popular choice, the Loving Couple is also presented to a newly married couple a symbol of true love.

Traditionally the Chinese believe that if put these wedding couple in a room where you are mostly with your other half, in the bedroom, sitting room, kitchen or even in the dining room,  your personal relationship luck will be activated and be a longlasting love.


I recently watched a drama called The Story of Ming Lan, where the second male lead gave the female figurine to Ming Lan to keep, while he kept the male one for himself.

Well probably because he separated them, he did not get to keep Ming Lan in the end.

I know, it is overthinking. LOL

Year of the Pig (2019)

Chinese Zodiac

Year of the Pig (2019)

 

Photo by JMorton

  •  It is the 12th of 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac of the Chinese calendar.
  • It is the 12th or last of the animals because it was the last one to arrive when the Jade Emperor called for a great meeting.
  • LAZY PIG comes from the story during the great race for the Jade Emperor’s great meeting, the pig took it upon itself to stop and forage, when it had its fill, he promptly slept.
  • Lucky flower is Lily
  • Lucky Colour: yellow, avoid red and blue
  • Characteristics:  Faithful in friendship, kind, generous, stylish, perfectionist and hardworking